life on the island of Hönö

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Monthly Archives: September 2014

On the way to the ferry there is an old windmill. I’ve always been curious of how it looks like inside and now had the chance. Open windmill-day with music, lottery and guided tour of the mill. The story is surprising, the mill was actually built in the Swedish countryside but 1887 transported to the island. It was in service until 1929. That’s when the government decided to tax the miller, a flour tax, which made it hard to carry on. Plus the arrival of electricity, it was hard to compete with electrical grinders. It seems the job wasn’t too hard, heavy I’m sure but after the wheat was poured in to the big cemented wheel there wasn’t more to do than wait, hence the bed. A small bed but apparently he was a small man.
We returned home with lots more knowledge, old stories and our lottery-win, an oven glove.

A whole day in the garden! Started with cutting down this years chili plants and re-potting them. Felt a bit brutal but I’m sure they will benefit from it. I picked the last chilies and tried pickling them for the first time. Boiled apple cider vinegar with water, sugar and some spices and poured over the sliced chilies. Very much looking forward to tasting but think it will taste better if I leave it for a while. The seeds I planted a couple of weeks ago are all coming along nicely!
The hens follow me wherever I go in the garden. They have been taking every moment to escape recently as well so I sorted out some more net and fence to keep them in. I moved all the strawberry plants to a couple of boxes at the back of the hour and moved the fence so the chicks will not get to them next year. It took them two hours(!) to figure out how to get to the there side. We thought they where coming up the stairs at the back to say hello but apparently the secret plan was one of them say hello while the rest jump down the other side of the net! Sometimes they are so clever but then when you try to get them back inside they never find the right way back again.

A few weeks ago I fought a cold an got completely knocked out. My daughter on the other hand had lots of energy so while I was laying on the sofa with a blanket over my head she asked -Mama can I dig a hole? A lot of questions came to my mind but I thought she would probably have a good reason and thought that at least it would keep her busy for a while so I didn’t have to do anything. I pointed out where she could dig(accidentally where we are putting a new flowerbed…). 3-4 hours later she comes in for a small break, completely knackered. I ask her what she’s dug the hole for, she says – to sit in it and read a book. Well she did a great job, we severed it with an old picture frame and some plastic to stop any animals falling in it. So a few weeks later(still with a cold) I break the news that we are going to have to fill it in. Then I have the idea, which will stop her from going ballistic, lets put a time capsule in the bottom of the pit! So she wrote a letter and put in a plastic bottle together with a swedish coin and a small black and white photo of her and a cd in a metal box. I went to the flowershop to get some more soil and picked up a few plants… Now she’s happy, the hole is covered and I planted a blueberry bush on top!

Being someone who appreciates old things and love learning new things, living on Hönö is like living in a sweetshop. There is so much to learn from the older generation and someone’s got to do it to pass the knowledge on. Last year I joined the weaving club but to be honest haven’t had much time to do any weaving. The members are very productive though and they invite other weavers to come in and tell about their techniques. The last guest was a woman from one of the neighbouring islands, in her nineties, who told us about what she remembers from her mum’s weaving. They used to do a technique called Snilje, where you weave, twist and cut the textiles which you don’t see anymore. Now I beat myself up about throwing away the carpet I found in the barn when I started emptying it. I now realise it was a huge Snilje-carpet, it was so dirty that I gave up hope about ever getting it clean but if I had known how rare it was I wouldn’t have given up. Even if I might not start making Snilje carpets it is so interesting hearing and documenting the stories. Apparently the carpets where so thick and of course heavy when wet so it was almost impossible to get them clean instead they were given to the fishermen to put in the oil room in their fishing boats. The fishermen had their own way of cleaning carpets- tying them with ropes, chucking them in the sea and dragging them behind the boat!

Went down the beach for a swim with our most frequent American/Irish visitor(well you could almost say he’s Swedish with all the time he spends over here). As we were getting in the water we realised there where hundreds of tiny little jellyfish babies floating around. They didn’t look like the usual jellyfish and taking a closer look we could see little ripples of light flashing inside them. Woah! A new species maybe? Or space invaders? They didn’t seem dangerous so we got in after all. Must admit it felt a bit weird going under knowing that you would probably come up with a tonne of jellybabies in your hair. I joked and said -Look behind you there’s a big one! But he didn’t fall for it. After getting out and heading for towels he says -Wow look at that huge one! I’m just about to say ha ha but glance over and there is the big mama jellyfish. Huge! Bright orange about 30cm wide with strings over 2meters long. The blue jellyfish are harmless but these red ones are extremely painful to get stung by. We both drew a big sigh of relief that we had gotten out of the water in the nick of time(anyone who’s seen Friends on tv know what you have to do if you do get burnt…)!